


Don't You Know That Your Time Has Come

by sequence_fairy



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Carpets are a fine way to say 'i like you', Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Please do not fact check my journalism or financial crime knowledge, Secret Identity, Strangers to Lovers, We're just out here to have fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:28:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24561613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: “Hunting the city cryptid, Ryan?” Katie asks, tapping one long nail against a picture of the Night Fox crossing the street in the dusk. He’s facing away from the camera, and the picture is half-blurred as the person who took it barely caught him.“Oh, that,” Ryan says.  “He left me a carpet."“He left you a what?”“A carpet,” Ryan says, “on account of how he bled all over mine.”Ryan should learn to lock his patio door or he will keep coming home to find strange men on his balcony.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 38
Kudos: 353
Collections: The Ghosts Are Watching





	Don't You Know That Your Time Has Come

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quackers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quackers/gifts).



> For Meph who asked for an identity reveal and specified it should be Shane with the secret identity. I hope you like this, my dear friend. 
> 
> Thanks to [Yesi](http://uneventfulhouses.tumblr.com) and [Mel](http://justcourbeau.tumblr.com) for the beta help, and to the Book Club Server for all their encouragement.

Shane shakes his head, dashing rainwater out of his eyes. It’s fucking bucketing down, the whole city blanketed by low clouds and wreathed in mist. From his perch, his visibility is limited to a few floors up or down. He can’t quite make out the street, but he can still hear it, in that displaced way that fog turns sound into abstract. Rain drips down the back of his neck, cold water rolling down his spine. 

Lights are on in the building directly across the valley of the alley below him. Shane squints against the rain, and reaches up with one gloved hand to push his hair out of his face. He shakes the excess water off and looks again, watching the figures move in the boardroom. The garish fluorescent lighting should leave them nothing more than silhouettes, but Shane’s quite able to read lips even at this distance. 

It’ll be easy enough to drop a tip to his contact at the SEC, and in the confusion of the ensuing investigation, slip in and out with the documents his client wants. Something guilty twists in his stomach at the thought, but Shane shoves it down. 

Corporate espionage is not his usual gig, but a man’s gotta eat. 

Speaking of, his stomach rumbles. Shane grimaces.

Lightning arcs across the sky, and the lights in the building flicker. Thunder rolls almost immediately after, and the meeting across the way ends abruptly. Shane waits until they’ve cleared the meeting room before he hauls himself back up over the building’s ledge and takes a running leap across the gulf between it and the next one. He lands easily, and keeps running from rooftop to rooftop until he’s close enough to home that he can slip down a fire escape and walk the rest of the way in the still drenching downpour. 

Before he steps onto the street, Shane reaches up to slip off his mask, placing it into an internal pocket in his coat. He joins the throng of umbrellas and suits, moving through the crowd with practiced ease. 

This city isn’t everyone’s favourite, but it’s home, and Shane likes it better than anywhere else he’s been. And that’s not even because he plays at justice in the darker corners. If anything, he should hate it more because of what he sees. But you take the bad with the good, and Shane knows better than to focus on the bad. He holds onto the knowledge that, deep down, people are alright and that they do look out for their neighbours, as best as they can.

Shane helps fill in the gap between where their best ends and the police department falls short. 

It’s not an ideal life, but it’s his, and he’s happy to be able to live it. So many people like him have been run out of their home cities, sent to other cities that don’t speak to them, cities whose heartbeats don’t run parallel to their own. 

Some people would say that Shane’s just lucky, that he just happens to know where to put his foot next or where the railing will be. He knows better. The city provides, and his blood calls out to her in answer. 

His building looms over the sidewalk, and Shane takes the steps two at a time, pushing into the lobby and shaking the rain out of his hair. The tile squeaks under his shoes. Shane doesn’t bother to wait for the elevator, and the stairwell is empty, just like the hallway when he arrives on his floor. He fishes his keys out and unzips his coat more fully, stuffing his gloves into one pocket so he can open his door.

Obi waits on the mat when Shane shoulders his door open. 

“Hey little bud,” Shane says, toeing out of his boots. “I’ll feed you when I get out of the shower, okay?” 

The cat doesn’t come any closer, unwilling to get mixed up in all the water coming off Shane. Shane sighs and shucks his coat, letting it fall into a heap on the floor. He strips as he walks deeper into his darkened apartment, leaving his clothes in sodden piles and climbs into the shower before the water heats. 

The cold water makes no impression on his already wet skin, but as the shower heats up, Shane heats up with it. He stands, one arm braced on the wall, and lets the water beat against his shoulders, watching as it runs into the drain between his feet. 

-:-

“Can’t he just let the police handle things like a normal person?” Ryan grouses to Steven. Steven makes a non-committal noise that Ryan chooses to take for agreement. “I mean, like, he just gets himself involved in all this stuff, and half the time, they can’t even hold the guys he leaves for them, ‘cause it’s all coerced confessions and shit.” 

Steven doesn’t look up from his keyboard. Ryan doesn’t seem to notice. “It’s like, so frustrating, man,” he says. “I’m just tryin’ to stay on top of my beat, and here he is with his fucking cryptic-ass notes and whatever-the-fuck.” Ryan spears his hands through his hair. 

Steven hums, then looks over at Ryan. “Ry,” he says, “write your story. Deadline’s in forty minutes. You need to have the copy in, or Katie will sell you on the black market for your kidneys. Stop worrying about whatever the Night Fox is doing. Crime isn’t your beat.” 

“It is when it’s financial crime,” Ryan argues. Steven levels him with a Look, and Ryan sighs. He looks at the blinking cursor on his screen and sets his hands on his keyboard.

The clock on the wall ticks away the minutes, and Ryan writes. 

It’s not the most polished story, but Katie’ll have Devin run it through the factcheck and research desk before she takes it down to the copy desk, and then it’ll come back to him for edits. He’s guaranteed his inches. Especially when they’re inches in service of the growing conspiracy surrounding Kuntz Holdings and it’s subsidiaries. Someone tipped off the SEC, Ryan is certain; there’s no way they’d have found out on their own. The money trail is buried far too deep.

Filing the story to Katie’s email, Ryan pushes away from his desk. Steven waves him off when Ryan asks if he wants to get a snack, so Ryan detours to the breakroom on his way out for a breath of fresh air and gets himself a coffee. 

Outside, it’s raining. Like it has been for the last four days. Ryan huddles under the little awning over the service entrance to the Times’ building and wonders if he should take up smoking. Now that he’s filed today’s brief, he can go back to turning the other story he’s working on over in his mind. 

He’s sure that if he follows the money, he’ll find what he needs. The money is always the tell.

He needs a reason to get into records at City Hall. 

-:-

The sound of flesh against flesh is not something Shane thinks he’ll get used to, and that’s probably a good thing. 

He ducks so he doesn’t have to take another punch, and comes up swinging. The hit lands on the point of Goon Number One’s chin, and he’s down like a rock. Goon Number Two steps in to grapple with him, and Shane twists, trying to get enough distance so he can land a solid enough hit. 

The flash of a knife blade in the dark catches his eye, too late. Shane barely feels the slice into his side, the knife is sharp enough to part the leather of his suit like butter. 

“Oh, you bleed,” Goon Number Two says when he pulls back the knife and sees the red before the rain starts washing it away.

“Yeah, and you speak. Who’d have thunk?” Shane grits out, staggering back. He presses his gloved hand to his side. 

“Gonna pay for stealin’ Mr. Kuntz’s secrets,” Number Two says, and advances. Shane steps back again and realises he’s at the edge of the roof. 

“Not today, I’m not,” Shane says and steps backwards into empty space. 

Just before he knows he has to turn to catch the railing coming up fast on his left, Shane catches the surprised look of the thug hanging over the edge of the roof. Shane grins and lets his instincts carry him, ignoring the seeping wetness against his side. Every time he reaches up for the next handhold, or lands a leap, the pain comes roaring back. 

He’s too far from home to make it there. He needs to stop. For just a moment. He looks over his shoulder, but the city is washed in rain and neon, and even for him, it’d be almost impossible to catch someone on his tail if they’re half as good as the guys he barely got away from just now were. 

Kuntz’s lackeys. Guess Shane’s buddy at the SEC isn’t as circumspect as he’d thought. He’ll have to re-evaluate that relationship.

Shane breathes out, closing his eyes for a moment, centering himself. The city is muted, but she’s there, deep under his skin. She’ll provide, he knows, hopefully before he falls off the side of a building.

Shane swings over the edge of a roof and down onto a fire escape, landing hard and falling to his knees. He rests for a moment, breathing through his nose. It’s still fucking raining. Shane sits back on his heels and then lets himself lean against the railing. He turns his face up to the sky. 

The stab wound throbs. Shane’s hand comes away wet with blood when he touches the edges of the tear in his coat. He looks around for a place he might be able to rest for a moment. There’s a balcony he can get to. Shane pulls himself to his feet, holding fast to the railing as he does. He sways when he gets all the way to standing. 

Climbing across the distance from the fire escape landing to the balcony is a million times more precarious than his flight across three blocks of rooftops and back alleys was. He manages to pull himself over, and it’s all he can do to keep himself upright. Blood oozes down his side. Shane breathes, one hand pressed against the rend in his coat. 

He just needs to rest for long enough that he can get his feet back under him.

The apartment on the other side is dark. He reaches out for the sliding door. It’s unlocked. Shane pushes it open. 

-:-

Ryan works late, as usual. Also as is normal, his apartment is dark and empty when he returns to it. Dark and empty, and chilled. Which is weird, since Ryan hadn’t left a window open when he left that morning, he’d checked. He’d also been sure to set the thermostat so that it’d be warm when he got home. 

A wet breeze curls around Ryan’s ankles after he steps out of his shoes at his door. Ryan’s heart jumps into his throat. There’s a gurgling noise from the other side of his couch. It sounds like someone having a hard time breathing. Ryan’s stomach bottoms out and his knees go weak. He reaches back for the wall, using it to prop himself up. 

Someone is in his apartment. 

Now that his eyes have adjusted, he notices that the sliding door to his balcony is open. The curtain flutters in the air coming in from outside. Ryan sucks in a breath. His heart thuds in his ears. 

“Who—” Ryan’s voice comes out high and thready. He clears his throat, tries again; “Who’s there?” 

There’s no response.

“I’m armed,” Ryan threatens. He’s not. Unless a messenger bag containing one refurbed laptop counts as a weapon, but he figures bravado is a decent strategy. 

There’s a grunt from the other side of his couch, then a hitched breath. 

It sounds like whoever is here is in pain. That thought re-solidifies Ryan’s knees and he pushes himself off the wall to take a stumbling step forward. 

The sight on the other side of his couch makes his breath catch for a whole other set of reasons. 

There’s a man lying on his carpet. Ryan scrambles around the couch, dropping to his knees. “Are you—-are you okay?” It’s a stupid question, because Ryan can plainly see that whoever this is, is not okay. Blood oozes out of small cuts and lacerations, and leaks wetly out of a larger wound in their side. 

Ryan reaches out, like he’s going to touch the mess of the wound in their side, and then he pulls his hand back. “Okay,” he says, “okay. Hang on. I’m gonna—get some stuff. Just—stay there.” 

Ryan rocks back onto his heels to push himself up to his feet. The stranger on his floor doesn’t move, just breathes shallowly. Ryan steps back, and then tears down the hall towards his bathroom. He hits the light and blinks in the sudden, blinding brightness. What does he need? Gauze. Something to wipe up with. Bandaids, probably. Ryan digs around under his sink until he finds the First Aid Kit his mother had pressed into his hands the day he’d moved out before college. 

Half the contents are likely expired, but it’s better than nothing. Carrying everything in his hands, he swings through his room, grabbing a dark towel off the back of his door. He throws it over his shoulder.

Back in the living room, Ryan dumps his selections on the couch, and fills a glass of water at the sink, then hits the lights to illuminate his space. The pot lights set into the ceiling of the living come to life, and Ryan catches the reflection of the man on the floor in the patio door before he blinks. 

“‘M fine,” the guy says, his voice raspy and faint. 

“Sure,” Ryan agrees, letting a quick smile run away with his mouth. He takes stock. The blood from the man’s side is seeping into Ryan’s carpet, his leather coat is soaked. “Okay,” Ryan says, and wipes his hands down his thighs. “First, we’re getting you out of this.” 

It takes some doing, but eventually Ryan gets him down to a cloth undershirt, and really sees what he’s dealing with. The smaller lacerations are mostly finished bleeding, so those can wait. Ryan slices through the man’s shirt, letting it fall open, so he can see the wet pulse of blood against skin. Underneath the layers of clothing, the man is pale. Ryan ignores everything except the gash along his ribs. It’s longer than Ryan’s hand. 

“Jesus,” Ryan swears. His heart’s still tripping in his chest, but his hands are steady as he dabs with a wet cloth at the edges of the wound. Each touch makes the man’s breath catch. His eyes stay closed under the domino mask Ryan has no intention of removing. 

“I’m gonna get you looked after,” Ryan says, and even as he’s saying it, he’s realising that he’s rather out of his depth. He reaches back for his phone, but before he can dial, the man’s hand comes up around Ryan’s wrist. 

“Don’t,” he says. “No hospital.” 

“But you’re—dude, you’re fucking bleeding all over my carpet,” Ryan argues. 

The man’s eyes are fierce in the dark. He blinks. “I’ll buy you a new one,” he says. He sounds stronger than he did even a moment ago. “Just—help me up. I’ll get out of your hair.” 

Ryan’s turn to blink now. “What—what the _fuck_? You’ve got like, a knife wound larger than my hand, and you’re just gonna fuckin’ walk out of here?” 

“Yeah,” the guy says. He pushes himself up to sitting, and Ryan lets him. “Ooo,” he says, and touches his side. He looks over at Ryan and then down at himself and then back at Ryan again. His eyes widen, and his other hand goes to the mask on his face. Confirming it’s still there, he looks over at Ryan again. 

“I didn’t look,” Ryan says to fill the silence. 

“I know,” the guy answers and heaves himself to his feet. He wobbles briefly, and Ryan follows him to standing. 

He’s remarkably tall. Probably entirely too tall. Ryan looks up at him. 

“Thanks,” the masked man says and slips out the patio door in three long strides. He’s over the railing and back out into the night before Ryan can say another word.

The next day, when Ryan slumps home from work after a day of fruitless research into Kuntz Holdings, there’s a rug rolled up against the patio door, outside on the balcony. The note reads simply: ‘ _As promised’_.

Ryan shakes his head and drags it inside. 

-:-

Shane babies himself for the next couple of nights. 

Short patrols, nothing too strenuous. The healing slice on his side makes reaching and grappling hard. The city remains close but quiet in the back of his head, her traffic currents humming under his skin. Normally, it would make him restless, but now it’s comforting. A reminder that she’ll be there when he needs her.

He reinforces the leather of his outer layer and tests the freedom of movement in his living room, all the furniture pushed up against one wall. When he’s done, he lies on his newly bare living room floor and pants while Obi looks on and continues to wash his paws. 

He thinks about the man in the apartment. Thinks about how he hadn’t asked, about how there’d been no hesitance to help, and how there’d been no desire to know who was under the mask. Thinks about the dark eyes and the grinning mouth. 

Something familiar about that grin, quick though it had been. 

Shane sits up, and reaches for his laptop. He lays back down with the laptop on his chest and pokes around a little into his research for Kuntz Holdings. He pulls up a Times article that had come with a nicely laid out timeline. The byline includes a picture.

Ryan Bergara. Staff reporter for the Times. Shane googles him. Under the bylines, he finds intramural basketball highlights from Bergara’s university days, and discovers that he’s not that much younger than Shane. He learns from Bergara’s instagram that he’s a gym rat who likes to take pictures of his food and the sky in equal measure. He reads back through his twitter feed, ignoring the retweeted articles from the Times and elsewhere, looking for more personal information. 

There’s not much, but Shane gleans what he can. He tests the name in his mouth, saying it silently to himself and then louder, in Obi’s direction. Obi pauses briefly in his ritual of grooming, but doesn’t otherwise react. Shane rolls over and heaves himself up from the floor. 

Night has fallen over the city. Shane pauses to look out the window in his kitchen. It’s clear tonight, and warm. A welcome change from the rain of the previous week. Shane stretches his arms over his head. There’s a barely-there pull in his side. 

-:-

Past midnight, Shane finds himself back at Ryan’s apartment. Well. Not back-back. He’s standing on a roof, looking down at the balcony he landed on a week ago. The lights are on in the apartment. He can see Ryan slouched into his couch, one hand in a bowl of popcorn, the other resting on his stomach. 

Shane lets himself watch Ryan while Ryan watches whatever he’s watching for another minute before turning on his heel and putting Ryan behind him. 

As he’s taking a running leap across to another building, Shane turns over an idea. 

He and Ryan are both, apparently, on the hunt for something to do with Kuntz Holdings. Serendipity led him to Ryan’s apartment, and while Shane believes very little in the things he does not hold with his own two hands, something about the fact that it was Ryan’s apartment, of all the apartments in this great sprawling city of theirs, that Shane ended up in, makes him think there’s maybe something to covertly teaming up. 

Traffic lights turn red abruptly as Shane crosses a street without looking. 

He could help Ryan. Ryan could help him. Shane reaches up to adjust the mask that covers the skin around his eyes. Truthfully, a domino mask doesn’t change his face that much, but in a city this size, anonymity is not that difficult to achieve. Shane scrambles up the backside of one of a myriad of old buildings in this section of the city, easy handholds the whole way up. He perches on a waterspout carved as an eagle, and turns his gaze back in the direction of Ryan’s building. 

Under his feet, the city hums. Shane ignores the way he can tell it’s a knowing sort of sound. 

He looks down at his watch and drops himself off his perch. He ignores the rush of the windows as the floors fly past him, and reaches out to catch a flagpole and uses the momentum of his swing to propel himself to the next one and the next one and then up, so he can get over to the next building. 

He has a meeting to get to.

-:-

Ryan spends the next three days invading, settling, and then colonizing the unused drafty boardroom on the fourth floor in the Times building. He builds his case with brightly coloured string, sticky notes, and glossy snapshots he sweet talks Trish in Photos to print for him. Katie finds him there, hunched over a box of files from City Records on a Friday afternoon. The slanting sunlight glows around the closed blinds. 

“Ry,” she says, “your column? Are you forfeiting your inches? Jonah’s on my ass about how you’ve missed your deadline this week.” 

Ryan looks up. He shoves his hands through his hair. “Ah shit,” he says. “Katie, I’m so sorry. I’ve just been …” he gestures around himself. Katie takes in the pinboards and the sticky notes and the bankers boxes of files. “Tell Jonah I’ll have a story for him. I’m working on something big. I’m almost there,” Ryan says, and he pushes himself away from the table, leaning back in his chair.

Katie steps further into the room. “Looks like the FOI department spewed you half of the records department,” she observes. Ryan grins. She comes around the table to look at the board propped up against the wall directly behind him. 

It’s different from the others. 

Where the other boards are filled with clear snaps of documents and people and reports, this board is all pictures of someone none of the photographers seem to be able to capture clearly. 

“Hunting the city cryptid, Ryan?” Katie asks, tapping one long nail against a picture of the Night Fox crossing the street in the dusk. He’s facing away from the camera, and the picture is half-blurred as the person who took it barely caught him. 

“Oh, that,” Ryan says. He tries for dismissive, but Katie’s nose is keen; she can smell blood in the water at hundreds of feet. She turns to look at him, dark eyes sharp. Ryan looks down at the ledger he’d been pouring over, and then back up at Katie. She’s still watching him. Ryan sighs. “He left me a carpet,” Ryan says, finally. 

“He left you a what?” 

“A carpet,” Ryan says, “on account of how he bled all over mine.” 

“Bled all over yours?” Katie’s voice trails off. 

“Yeah,” Ryan says, scrubbing one hand through his hair. “I think he’d been stabbed? I didn’t ask. There was a lot of blood.” He looks over at Katie. She’s leaning one hip against the table. There’s no judgement on her face but Ryan steels himself for a lecture anyway. 

“Is he cute? Like, in person I mean?” Katie asks, instead of whatever Ryan thought she might say. Her train of thought jumping Ryan’s anticipated tracks so neatly makes Ryan bark out a laugh. 

“You know he wears a mask, right? Also he was bleeding. I didn’t really get a good look at his face since I was trying to keep him from dying on my floor,” Ryan says. Katie raises one perfectly arched brow. Ryan rolls his eyes. “He’s really tall,” he offers. 

Katie closes her eyes for a moment, like she’s fixing that detail into her mind. When she opens them again, she takes another look at Ryan’s Night Fox board. “I’ll cover for you with Jonah,” she says, “but I want your pitch for this story on my desk before midnight on Monday.” 

“Aye, aye, captain,” Ryan says. 

Katie leaves him to it.

-:-

The flash drive shows up in Ryan’s inbox on Monday morning. It’s innocuous enough, a little white thumb drive that slides open to reveal the USB end. It doesn’t have any identifying marks, doesn’t show any sign of being anything Ryan should pay any attention to, but for some reason, it’s there, in his inbox. 

He picks up it, fingers curling around the little device. When he slides it open, it says 8GB on the connector, and Ryan sits down in his chair. He debates briefly with himself whether to plug this into his laptop or not and decides to unhook the LAN cable from the back of his dock and turn off his wireless internet radio. Ryan slides the thumb drive into the slot on his laptop and holds his breath. 

For a moment, nothing happens, then a light flickers on, and the drive whirs. Ryan selects the dialogue that opens the files and watches as they populate in the window. The drive is nearly completely full. Folders of pictures, email chains, and, Ryan notices with glee, investigative notes. 

Ryan clicks on the document labelled _Notes - 1.docx._

When his laptop doesn’t immediately start smoking, he gathers everything he’ll need from his desk and books it for the fourth floor. 

He doesn’t move from his chair until his stomach growls, loud in the silence of the room. Ryan looks up. It’s dark. He’s got seventeen windows open and half again as many tabs running on his browser. He sits back, his shoulders protesting the movement and his spine aching. He runs a hand through his hair. 

Ryan’s phone rings, and he jumps. He looks over, and his heart plummets into his stomach. 

“Katie,” he says, when he picks up. 

“Ryan,” she answers, “your pitch is due in an hour. I noticed you disappeared all day. Are you hiding in a cave somewhere?” 

Ryan sighs. “Katie, I—I think you need to come up here.” 

To her credit, Katie doesn’t ask, just hangs up the phone, and Ryan knows she’s on her way. He’s never had an editor like her. She trusts him and his hunches, and never hangs him out to dry. Ryan’s lucky as hell, and he knows it. 

Katie peeks her head in after a few minutes, and Ryan beckons her over. 

“Look,” he says, turning his laptop to show her the pictures. He flips through an album of photographs of documents rendered in clear black and white. Katie leans in, then sits down in the chair next to him, and then she’s tugging his laptop close and clicking through the next folder of images. 

She looks up at him over the lid of his laptop. “What is this?” 

“I don’t know,” Ryan says, and he stands. He paces as he talks. “The flash drive was in my inbox this morning. Just—appeared there,” he says, waving away Katie’s question. “I don’t know where it’s from or who compiled this, there’s no identifiers on the documents, I checked.” 

Katie’s eyes go back to the computer screen. 

“It’s the missing pieces,” he says, and then taps one of his boards. The linking line coming off the picture of Ralph Kuntz ends in a question mark, but underneath, it spiderwebs into several directions; money-laundering and evading environmental controls and on and on. Katie nods. 

“I think I have to call the DA,” Ryan says. He leans on the table palms pressed into the wood. 

“If you call the DA, they’re gonna want you to out your source,” Katie reminds him.

“Well, good luck to them for that. I have no idea who put this together,” Ryan replies.

Katie pushes Ryan’s laptop away from her. “You know if you publish this, he’s gonna come after the paper.” 

“I know,” Ryan says. He blows out a frustrated breath. 

“You’ll have to corroborate all this.” 

“I know, Katie.” 

“I’ll talk to Jonah about getting you one of the interns for research. You’ll need to have these notes printed. I’ll have Devin re-prioritize the fact-check desk and speak to Trish about getting you more streamlined access to the Photo desk.” Katie stands. She looks at Ryan, who is still reeling from how quickly Katie’s come around.

“This is a big story,” she says. Ryan can see the wheels turning in Katie’s head. “I want copies of everything. We’ll put the flash drive in the safe in my office,” she says, and closes Ryan’s laptop with a snap. “Let’s go, Bergara.” 

Katie gathers up Ryan’s laptop, and he trails after her. 

-:-

The tapping on Ryan’s patio door startles him out of a doze. 

“Hm what?” he says, and then the tapping comes again. Ryan’s head swings towards the sound and then he leaps off his couch. 

There’s a man standing on his patio. Ryan is sixteen stories up. He blinks. The man is still there when Ryan opens his eyes again. He taps on the glass, with one gloved finger. His mask covers his eyes. 

Before Ryan can talk himself out of it, he’s moving towards the door, pulling it open, and stepping back to let the man into his apartment. 

“Hello, again,” the man says. He looks around at Ryan’s apartment, and his mouth curves into a smile when he catches the carpet on the floor under Ryan’s coffee table. 

“What— _what_?” 

“Easy,” the Night Fox says, because that’s clearly who this is, standing in the middle of Ryan’s living room, eyes scanning the rest of his apartment. 

“I’m not—” Ryan stops, takes a breath and starts again, “—you don’t need to tell me to calm down.” 

The Night Fox’s mouth curves into a grin, and Ryan can see that the smile reaches his eyes. “Saw the paper this morning,” he says. 

“I bet you did,” Ryan replies. He sinks down onto his couch. It’s been all day with fielding calls from everywhere and then some, and then, to top it off, a visit from the Kuntz counsel team to remind Ryan about his place. The Times’ own counsel had run them off the premises, but not before they’d given Ryan a mild heart attack. And now, to have the Night Fox in his apartment. It’s been A Day. 

“Thanks for keeping my name out of it,” the Night Fox says and lifts a hand to brush through his hair. It’s a shaggy brown, longer than it was a couple of weeks ago when he was bleeding onto Ryan’s rug.

“Anytime,” Ryan says. He looks up at the Night Fox. The guy shifts his stance, leaning forward a little like he wants to take off. Ryan, who up til this moment hadn’t really wanted anyone around, suddenly wants to keep the Night Fox in his apartment just a little longer. “Kuntz’s lawyers are on my ass,” he says. “They say the story’s a bunch of bunk, and they’ll bury the Times in litigation.” 

The Night Fox shrugs. “You know it’s not. The courts’ll know it’s not as soon as you hand over discovery. They also know it’s not, which is why they came to threaten you today.” 

Ryan shoves a hand through his hair. He knows. He does. It’s just hard to see it when four guys in very expensive suits and really nice shoes show up at his desk to harass him about defamation and libel laws while he was just trying to eat his lunch. 

“Your editor wouldn’t have let it go to print if they didn’t think you had solid sources,” the Night Fox continues. “Katie’s tough like that.” This last is almost rueful, like the Night Fox and Ryan’s editor have some unfinished business. 

“You know Katie?” 

“Only professionally,” the Night Fox says, and then he steps back. “I was just checking in on you,” he says, looking over his shoulder towards the city. “I should get back.” 

“Have a good—” Ryan pauses, looking for the right word. “Patrol?”

The Night Fox laughs, quiet and low. “Yeah. Thanks, Ryan,” he says, and then he’s gone. 

Ryan does not think, a little giddily, about how the Night Fox said his name. He does not. It’s stupid really. Of course he knows Ryan’s name. He had a package delivered to Ryan. Ryan does, however, wonder who the Night Fox might be under that mask. He could find out probably, there can’t be that many giants in this city of millions. He has a nice smile, Ryan decides. 

Maybe Ryan would like to see it again. 

-:- 

It’s quiet in the city for a long stretch after Ryan’s exposé of Kuntz Holdings. Shane should be grateful, but mostly he’s bored. Petty crime and low-level gangland activity are not really enough to hold his interest anymore. Not now that he’s had the experience of being chased half-way across the skyline with a knife wound. Not now that he’s had Ryan’s smile trained on him from less than six feet away and knowing he put it there. 

The sun is setting, and Shane sits up from the floor of his living room. He still hasn’t replaced the carpet and the hardwood is warm from the sun spilling in through his window. Obi chirps from the edge of the kitchen. Shane heaves himself up to feed the cat. He needs to get ready to go out. 

Shane slides the mask onto his face just before he pulls himself up onto his building’s roof. It’s dark now, the city cast in shadow. He clenches his fingers in his gloves, testing. Tonight feels like it’ll be another slow night. He closes his eyes, letting his other senses bleed out into the air. 

The city sounds rise around him. Sirens and shouts and the blare of televisions and radios. Children crying themselves to sleep in their beds, women teetering along the sidewalk, laughing with each other. The sound of a gun cocking; the hammer falling against steel and then the silence before the trigger squeeze. 

Shane’s moving before the fizz-bang of the powder igniting has finished. 

It’s a mugging. 

Shane hangs back, watching from the fire escape above the alley. It’s mostly done. The gunshot was a warning, the victim is shakily handing over a wallet and a watch, but Shane can’t see blood on his person. 

The perp’s voice is gravelly. 

The victim, whose face Shane cannot see from his angle, speaks. 

“It’s cool,” he says, handing over his wallet. “It’s cool. No one has to get hurt.” 

The voice is familiar. Painfully familiar. Shane’s grip on the railing slips in his surprise. He regrips, arresting his fall, but it doesn’t stop the sound of his boots against the steps of the fire escape. 

The perp and Ryan look up. 

Shane lets go, on purpose this time. 

He lands behind them, and before either Ryan or the mugger can move, gets an arm around his neck and hauls him away. Shane doesn’t check to make sure Ryan’s watching, but it’s gratifying regardless to notice when he looks up after the perp is unconscious, that Ryan is watching, absolutely rapt. 

Shane snags Ryan’s wallet and watch and hands them back. Ryan takes them automatically, holding them in his hands like he’s forgotten what to do with them. 

“You okay?” Shane asks. 

Ryan blinks. He looks down at himself. “I, uh, yes?” 

“You sure about that, buddy?” 

Ryan shakes himself and shoves his wallet back into the pocket of his jeans. “Yeah. Yes. I’m okay,” he says, but his hands are shaking as he tries to put his watch back on. For a moment, Shane watches him struggle and just as he’s making up his mind to offer to help, Ryan gives up and pushes the watch into the pocket of his hoodie. 

“Okay,” Shane says, but he doesn’t melt back into the shadows like he usually would. He stands there, in the middle of this alley with Ryan, while Ryan’s looking at him with wide eyes and the aftertaste of fear in the air between them. 

“I—” Ryan’s voice cracks. He clears his throat. “Thank you,” he says. 

“Just doing my job,” Shane replies, a bit flip. 

Ryan grins. It’s fleeting, but Shane finds he likes the way it warms up Ryan’s eyes. “How do you keep ending up on my doorstep? Some people go their whole lives without seeing you, and here you are, again.” 

Shane shrugs. “Dunno. Maybe you’re just a trouble magnet.” 

“Maybe,” Ryan says. His watch beeps in his pocket. “Oh,” he says. “I gotta—-I gotta go.” He turns to leave, and then seems to have second thoughts. “I don’t know … what the protocol is here, but I guess I’ll just put this out there, and you can just—do with it what you will.” 

Shane raises an eyebrow. 

“My, uh, door’s open. You know. If you, like, need it,” Ryan says. He reaches up to rub at the back of his neck. There’s a flush settling high on his cheeks. “Anytime.” 

With that said, Ryan leaves.

Shane stands in the alley for a long time after Ryan’s gone. 

-:-

It’s a little like clockwork after that.

Shane tells himself that he won’t need Ryan’s door. He keeps a wide berth from Ryan’s place and the places Ryan frequents. He stops reading the Times, stops hanging about at police pressers looking for tidbits of information, stops patrolling near the coffee shop Ryan likes and the pizza place Ryan sometimes picks up a pie to take home after a long day. 

He’s drawn back to the rooftop across from Ryan’s building regardless. When he’s not paying attention, his feet take him there. He’d blame the city for setting his path, but she wouldn’t do something he didn’t want her to do, even if that something is buried deep in his subconscious.

Eventually, Shane gives up pretending he doesn’t want to see Ryan again and lets himself show up on Ryan’s balcony. The apartment is dark. Ryan’s not home.

Shane slumps briefly, his hand on the glass of Ryan’s door. It was too much to think he’d be home when Shane was rolling by. He’s turning away when the interior door opens and a spill of light precedes Ryan into his apartment. 

Shane tries the door. It’s open. Ryan’s eyes meet his over the island, and Shane pushes the door the rest of the way open. 

“Pizza?” Ryan asks. 

They eat the pie on Ryan’s couch. Shane takes off his gloves and leaves them next to his boots at the door. Ryan curls up, feet under himself, while he eats. Shane sits with the plate balanced on his knees. 

They trade jokes back and forth. It’s easy. Shane forgets, for a little while, to hold himself apart. He leans into Ryan’s shoulder to laugh, and Ryan shoves him back. 

Ryan’s hand lingers on the leather of Shane’s outer layer. “Does this thing stop knives now?” he asks. 

Shane shrugs. “Haven't had to real world test it yet, but it should. At least in all the vital places.”

Ryan grimaces. His hand falls off Shane’s arm. He shifts, turning so he can look at Shane head-on. “I was worried about you,” he says. 

“Don’t worry about me,” Shane says. “Takes a lot to stop me.” 

“That knife almost stopped you,” Ryan says. 

“Enh,” Shane hedges. “I just needed a minute.”

“There was so much blood,” Ryan says. He swallows. Shane can hear the click of his throat as he does. 

“Hey,” he says, leaning in a little closer. “I never thanked you, really. You helped me out a lot that night.” 

“Guess we’re even now,” Ryan says. He picks at the remnants of his last slice of pizza. 

Silence falls between them, broken by the laugh track of the sitcom neither of them are watching. Shane watches Ryan. His hands are steady, but he’s ripping the pizza crust into tiny pieces and leaving them in a heap on his plate. 

“I should go,” Shane says, eventually. “Patrol and shit.” 

Ryan looks up. “Don’t,” he says. Then his eyes widen and he claps a hand over his mouth. “Shit. I—if you have to go, you gotta go, I guess?” 

“I should go,” Shane repeats, but he doesn’t move off the couch. 

Ryan looks at him. There’s a question in Ryan’s eyes. One that Shane can answer and maybe forestall several others if he does. 

“You don’t know me,” Shane says. “We’d never met before I ended up here that night.” 

“I’d like to,” Ryan says. He lifts one hand, and Shane holds himself still while Ryan traces the edges of his mask. Ryan shifts forward, coming in closer to Shane. 

“Ryan,” Shane says, warning in his tone. He doesn’t stop Ryan though, doesn’t stop him from leaning in and, in fact, when Ryan leans in further, Shane meets him in the middle. 

Ryan tilts his head, and their mouths slide together, and Shane’s hands fly up to land on Ryan’s arms, pulling him in closer. Shane lets Ryan crowd in and push him back against the couch. 

It’s easy, after that, to let Ryan settle into the space between Shane’s thighs, to let Ryan kiss his way down Shane’s neck and make Shane arch under him. Ryan’s mouth is hot and dangerous and Shane should stop them, but all he wants to do is make sure this isn’t over too fast. It’s gonna be if he’s not careful, with the way Ryan feels in his arms, all compact and strong and like he could take Shane apart as easily as he could breathe. Shane shivers.

He’s got to put a stop to this. He can’t want Ryan like this. Can’t go from joking on the couch to wanting Ryan to climb inside him, to wanting to tell Ryan everything, to flay himself open and show Ryan every secret part of himself. Shane can’t have that. He can’t. He wants to. Oh God, does he want to. With every fibre of his being. Shane makes a noise into Ryan’s mouth, tightens his hands around Ryan’s arms and hates himself a little bit for what he has to do.

Shane pushes at Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan lifts his head and meets Shane’s gaze. “I want—”

Shane puts one finger up to Ryan’s mouth. Ryan goes briefly cross-eyed looking at it. “Ry,” he says, “I can’t do this.” 

Ryan pulls back immediately. His hair is mussed where Shane shoved his hands into it while they were kissing. His eyes are hooded and dark. Heat pools and gathers at the base of Shane’s spine. “Kinda seems like we’re doing it,” Ryan says, rolling his hips down meaningfully. Shane can’t help the way his body arches into the contact. 

Ryan has a point, Shane will concede. 

“I _shouldn’t_ do this,” Shane amends. “ _We_ shouldn’t do this.” 

“Why?” Ryan asks. “So you can be manfully broody on a rooftop later? Will it ruin your street cred?” 

Shane can’t help the snort of laughter that escapes him. “No, shit. Jesus. It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?” 

Shane reaches up with one hand to ghost it along the edge of Ryan’s jaw. “You’re just—-I really shouldn’t get attached.”

“Get attached,” Ryan says, like it’s a dare. He leans in, and Shane opens under his mouth, letting Ryan kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. When Ryan finally pulls back, they’re both breathing hard.

“I am already,” Shane admits. Ryan licks his lips. 

“Hey,” Ryan says, “before we go any further here…” he trails off and looks down at Shane. “I guess, what I’m trying to say, is that you know my name, but I—-don’t know yours.” 

Shane sucks in a breath. 

“It’s okay if you don’t wanna tell me, I get it. Secrecy and all that. It’s fine. It’s just—I’d like to know who you are, you know? Behind all this.” Ryan plucks at the front of Shane’s coat.

Shane shivers under Ryan’s steady gaze. It’s tempting. So tempting. Shane’s gotten so used to hiding, to being alone, to never sharing this part of his life with anyone else. He shifts, and they both hiss as the adjustment makes them brush against each other. “You might not like what you find underneath,” Shane hedges. 

Ryan’s mouth curves up into a tiny smile. “Try me,” he says. 

Shane leans up to kiss him. Ryan falls into it with reckless abandon, and Shane’s hands wander all over. He draws his palms down Ryan’s back, then back up to squeeze around his arms and up further to push into Ryan’s hair. Ryan moans when Shane’s fingers tighten, and his hips stutter down against Shane’s. 

Ryan’s hands fumble with the front of Shane’s coat, searching for how to get inside of it. He pulls at the hem, trying to slide his hands up inside. Shane arches into the touch, tipping his head back as Ryan’s fingers find skin. Ryan lets Shane’s mouth go and presses kisses all along the line of his jaw, then down his neck, nosing the collar of the jacket aside, so he can suck a bruise into the join of Shane’s neck and shoulder. 

“I can’t—” Ryan says, struggling once again with Shane’s coat. 

“Here,” Shane says, lifting his hands from where they’d fallen to Ryan’s hips. “Let me.” 

Ryan pulls back, holding himself up with one arm on the back of the couch. Shane undoes the fastenings of his coat and lets it fall open across his chest. Ryan’s hands land immediately on the hem of his shirt to push it up. Shane hisses at the contact. 

Ryan’s hands-on exploration pauses along Shane’s side. “There’s no mark,” he says, tracing the spot where Shane had been knifed. Shane feels the goosebumps spreading in the wake of Ryan’s touch and tries to suppress the shiver that rolls through his body.

“I heal clean,” Shane says, tipping Ryan’s chin up with one finger and then ghosting his hand along the line of Ryan’s jaw so he can bring their mouths together again. 

Ryan hums into the kiss. 

“I thought you were just—some guy,” Ryan says, pulling back. He’s like a dog with a bone. “You’re not, are you?” 

Ryan’s eyes are dark. Shane makes himself meet Ryan’s gaze. “I’m some guy trying to do the right thing,” Shane says, which is not an answer. 

Ryan lets him get away with it and goes back to kissing Shane. His hand comes up to cup Shane’s face, fingers tapping against the edge of Shane’s mask. 

“I want to see,” Ryan says, when they break apart again. Shane’s panting, and he can feel the thrum of Ryan’s heartbeat against his chest. Can hear it, knocking against Ryan’s ribs. His own keeps a jackrabbit beat. 

“If I say no, will you stop kissing me?” Shane asks. 

Ryan’s breathing hitches. He traces the edge of Shane’s mask again. “I wish you’d say yes,” Ryan says. He leans down and presses a kiss to Shane’s mouth, quick and chaste, then he pulls away, all the way away. 

“Ry—” Shane tries, sitting up to follow after Ryan. 

“I don’t even know your name,” Ryan says, spreading his hands out on his thighs. 

“Do you need to?” 

Ryan’s eyes widen. “I’m not—I’m not gonna sleep with someone whose name I don’t know,” he says. 

Shane’s stomach turns over. He could bat that back with a tease about Ryan sleeping around, he could laugh a little at Ryan’s romantic notion of knowing the names of all his partners. He could. He doesn’t want to. He reaches out and takes Ryan’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together. “This is hard for me,” he says, and Ryan nods. 

“I just want to know what to call you,” Ryan says. He squeezes Shane’s fingers. 

Shane takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Shane. You can call me Shane.” 

“Shane,” Ryan says, like he’s testing it out. Shane likes the sound of it in Ryan’s mouth. 

“Say it again,” Shane says, leaning in to close the distance between them. 

Ryan does, barely a breath of sound against Shane’s mouth. The shape of his name on Ryan’s lips makes Shane groan, makes him reach up and pull Ryan in, makes him crush their mouths together like he can’t help himself. Ryan meets his intensity, licking into Shane’s mouth like he’s dying for it. He grips Shane’s shoulders, leather bunching in his hands, and hauls him in. 

-:-

They stumble to the bedroom, knocking against the walls of Ryan’s hallway as they go. Ryan tugs Shane’s coat off his shoulders and pulls Shane’s shirt up over his head. Shane peels Ryan out of his button-up, and without taking his mouth off the soft spot under Ryan’s jaw, sets to undoing Ryan’s pants, just as they cross the threshold of Ryan’s room. 

They stop, for just a moment. Shane looks over Ryan’s shoulder, at Ryan’s bed. His sheets are rumpled. 

“Don’t make your bed in the morning?” Shane asks, walking Ryan back. 

Ryan’s thumbs rub across Shane’s narrow hips, dipping under the waistband of his pants. “Got a problem?” he asks, one eyebrow lifted. Shane shakes his head as Ryan turns them around, and presses his hand against the centre of Shane’s chest.

Ryan tumbles Shane down onto his back. Shane goes, easy like breathing, and Ryan fits himself into the cradle of Shane’s hips. 

Now that Ryan knows his name, it’s like he’s forgotten all the other words. All that he seems to be able to say is Shane, over and over. He breathes it into the hollow of Shane’s collarbone, into the meat of his shoulder, punctuated with teeth when Shane closes one palm around Ryan’s cock and pulls. 

“Fuck,” Ryan says, and Shane answers him in kind, because Ryan’s hands are just as busy. 

They work each other over. Shane presses open-mouthed kisses against Ryan’s shoulder, and Ryan breathes into Shane’s hair. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ryan says, voice strained. Shane’s hand stills over Ryan, but he thumbs across the tip of Ryan’s cock, making Ryan’s hips stutter and his breath catch. Ryan catches his gaze. “Wait.” 

“Why’re we stopping?” Shane asks, leaning up to press his mouth against the wine-dark stain on Ryan’s neck, worrying the colour in a little deeper with the dig of his teeth. 

“Sh- _Shane_ ,” Ryan says, trembling. 

“That’s my name,” Shane quips, “don’t wear it out.” 

“Fuck you,” Ryan retorts, without heat. Shane twists his hand around the head of Ryan’s dick, making him groan.

“I will,” Shane says, catching Ryan’s eyes with his. “If you’re good.” 

“Oh,” Ryan’s mouth falls open around the sound. “Oh. Oh, God.” His eyes slip shut, and Shane can hear the click of his throat as he swallows. 

Shane shifts under Ryan, hikes one of his legs up around Ryan’s thigh and tips them over, then rolls over on top of Ryan. For a minute, he lets himself look. 

Ryan’s no desk jockey reporter who’s never seen the inside of a gym and lives on coffee and cigarettes and Beltway gossip. He’s fit, all over. Shane takes in the broad shoulders, the narrow waist, the toned arms, the lean lines of Ryan’s thighs falling open around Shane’s hips. He takes in the grith and heft of Ryan’s dick, curved gently and flushed, disappearing into the circle of Shane’s fist.

Ryan’s mouth is slightly parted, and he’s thrown one arm over his eyes, like he can’t look at Shane. Shane sits back on his knees between Ryan’s thighs. “Look at you,” he says, watching Ryan fuck up into his fist. He squeezes tight around Ryan, and reaches with his free hand, curling it around Ryan’s balls. Ryan gasps, and bites his lip. 

Shane grins down at him. 

“You’re gonna—” Ryan cuts himself off, arching into Shane’s grip, since Shane’s stopped his hand at the apex of his up and down movement. Shane relents, and on the downward slide, Ryan shudders, all the way down to his toes. His thighs tremble around Shane’s hips. Ryan’s on a one-way trip to pleasure city, and his exit is coming up fast. 

“That’s the plan, isn’t it?” 

The arm over Ryan’s face lifts, and Ryan settles his hand behind his head. His other hand holds Shane’s hip, fingers dug in. “Still wish I could see your face,” Ryan says. 

Shane looks down at himself. “Is everything else not enough?” He’s not quite all the way undressed, because he got impatient with his pants, but all there is to see there are legs that are far too long for any one person to have. 

“Shane,” Ryan sighs, as Shane shifts back further, giving himself some room. “Take it off,” Ryan says, “please?” 

Shane closes his eyes. He hears Ryan move, and then, when he opens his eyes again, Ryan’s suddenly right there, in his face. He lifts one hand to Shane’s cheek and runs a finger along the edge of the mask. Shane drops his chin, letting Ryan explore. He wills himself not to pull away.

“Are you horribly disfigured underneath or something? Is that why you don’t want me to see?” Ryan asks. His voice is low and his touch, careful. 

“You can’t just ask people if they’re disfigured, Ryan,” Shane says. Ryan’s nose scrunches up. “But no,” Shane relents, a hint of laughter in his voice. “I’m not disfigured. Nothing under here but the rest of my face.”

“It’s a good face, Shane,” Ryan says, soft. 

“How would you know? You’ve never seen it.” 

“I’m really trying to, but some guy keeps giving me the run-around about it.” Ryan cups Shane’s face in his hands, fingers pressed against the edges of the mask. “Your secret’s safe with me. I promise.” 

Shane brings one hand up to press against Ryan’s. A tremor goes through Ryan at the contact. “You say that,” Shane says, within a meaningful look. 

“I _mean_ it,” Ryan answers, vehement. “I’ll never say a word. Scout’s honour.” He takes one of his hands off Shane’s face and holds up three fingers, crossing his thumb over his palm. 

“Oh well, if I have the promise of an Eagle Scout,” Shane retorts. 

Ryan rolls his eyes, but when he looks at Shane again, his face is open and earnest. “It’s not a dealbreaker for me,” Ryan says, “but if you’re willing, I’d really like to see your whole face.”

Shane takes a deep breath. Ryan waits, and Shane knows that if he says no, this will still happen, but it’s only putting off what eventually Ryan will want more than anything else. Shane finds himself wanting it, too. 

He pulls away from Ryan’s hands on his face, sitting back. Ryan’s room is lit softly by the glow of the street lights outside, light bleeding in through the slats in Ryan’s blinds. Ryan’s eyes gleam in the half-dark.

“If anyone finds out you know who I am …” Shane trails off. 

Ryan shakes his head. “I’m not asking you for access to your bank account or for you to give me your social security number. I just—” Ryan pauses, and looks down at his lap. His hands curl around themselves. “I want to see what you look like,” Ryan says, looking back up at Shane, eyes full of heat. “I want to see—when you come, I want to see what you look like.” 

“Jesus, Ryan,” Shane mutters, and then he’s leaning in, catching Ryan’s mouth with his own. Ryan’s eager under Shane’s mouth, and his hands slide into Shane’s hair, fingers tightening around the short strands at the base of his skull. Shane hisses into the kiss, and Ryan hums in return, when Shane presses him back, until they’re both flat on the bed again.

“I want to see,” Ryan says, when Shane takes a moment to breathe. Shane can taste the words on Ryan’s lips, and he ducks his head, pressing his forehead to Ryan’s, breathing in and out. The banked fire in his gut rises and spills out, turning all his blood to sparking fizz. It feels like the arrival of the first rain in the spring, the sound of thunder echoing between the skyscrapers, and the cacophony of joy at a summer festival, bottled up under his skin. 

The city exhales as Shane does. Traffic lights turn green, and birds take flight from the city centre square, wings beating in and out of time as they strain for the sky. 

Here, in Ryan’s bedroom, it’s quieter, like the hush of a foggy morning.

Shane reaches up and touches the side of his mask, getting his fingers under it. He looks down at Ryan, one last time before he pulls it off. Ryan’s eyes are wide, and they don’t leave Shane’s as Shane draws the mask off his face and settles it on the bed beside them. 

Shane’s not thinking about the mask when he lets Ryan roll them over, until Ryan’s rising over him, and he’s not thinking about the mask when Ryan slides down Shane’s body, mouth hot and hands eager. He’s still not thinking about it when Ryan shoulders Shane’s thighs apart, and settles in between them, one hand wrapped around Shane’s cock and the other sliding down and down, until Shane’s spine arches against the pressure. 

Ryan lifts his head when Shane’s hand lands once more in his hair. His eyes are dark, his mouth is full, and Shane decides he could die happily now, watching Ryan’s lips curve up, as best as they can, into a cat-with-the-cream smile. He lets his head drop back, and Ryan pulls him almost over the edge with the hot-wet slide of his mouth and the push-drag of his fingers.

“Ry—” Shane breathes. “Ryan. God.” 

Ryan hums and keeps doing what he’s doing. 

Shane breathes, trying to keep himself from the edge. He doesn’t want it to be over this fast. Ryan’s mouth on him and Ryan’s fingers inside him, though, are a recipe for disaster, and it’s taking all of Shane’s control not to lose it before he’s even gotten a chance to get more than his hand around Ryan.

“Ryan. Ryan, Jesus. You’re gonna—” 

Ryan pulls off, lifting his head to look up at Shane from between his thighs. His fingers continue to move inside Shane, in and out, the push-pull sending shivers of sensation rocketing up Shane’s spine. His hands clench in the sheets beside his hips. “Gorgeous,” Ryan says, leaning down to mouth along the jut of Shane’s hip and along the crease of his thigh. 

“Do you want another or—?” 

Shane grits his teeth. He forces out a breath before he can speak. Wills his voice not to waver or otherwise give him away. “Please,” he says. 

His voice clearly did not get the memo, as it strains and cracks around that very simple one-syllable word, which was not at all what he meant to say anyway. He figures Ryan will jump in with some smart-ass remark, but he doesn’t; instead, all he does is slide another finger in alongside the first two and make Shane stop breathing altogether. 

His mind disappears in a haze of static when Ryan’s fingers stretch and come back together to curl into the place inside Shane that makes everything else go away. 

“Oh, look at you,” Ryan says. Shane can barely hear him. Ryan doesn’t seem to be looking for a response, and Shane doesn’t have one to give him. 

Now—now Ryan’s in a hurry. He pulls back, and Shane bites back the whine at the sudden feeling of emptiness without Ryan’s fingers inside. Ryan shifts up onto his knees and grabs onto Shane’s hips. Ryan pulls, and Shane goes. Isn’t that something, to be moved into position by a pair of hands around your hips? 

The press of Ryan’s cock against Shane is an agony of anticipation. Shane holds his breath, scared that if he twitches, Ryan will stop. 

Ryan blows out his own breath, and then Shane feels him, feels the push and the stretch and the pressure. Ryan’s hands flex on Shane’s hips, digging in like Ryan’s holding on, like he might fly apart if he lets go. 

When Ryan’s flush with Shane, he drops his chin towards his chest, and his grip on Shane loosens. Shane pets at Ryan’s hip, feeling the tremor of Ryan’s body. 

“You’re okay,” Shane says. Ryan’s shoulders are trembling. “You’re good. I’m good.” 

“I know,” Ryan says and looks up to catch Shane’s gaze. His eyes are wide, his face completely guileless. Shane’s not sure he’s ever seen anyone this clearly. “It’s just—I never—”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees. He shifts his hips, watching the way the movement makes Ryan’s jaw drop open. “C’mon,” Shane urges.

Ryan doesn’t need to be told twice.

The air between them goes thick and hot. 

There’s nothing in the room but the sound of breathing, the slide of skin against skin, and the shattered noise Shane makes when Ryan grabs hold of him and drives him over the edge, eyes glittering and body silhouetted by his bedroom window. Ryan bows forward as Shane comes, and Shane doesn’t hear what Ryan says, but he has the sense of garbled vowels and the harsh crunch of the consonants of vulgarity. 

There’s a moment of silence.

Noise filters back in as Shane blinks. Ryan’s leaning over him, chest heaving, face tucked into his arm. They’re still slotted together, like some erotic puzzle. Shane reaches up, touches shaky fingers to the line of Ryan’s jaw. Ryan leans into the touch and opens his eyes so he can look at Shane. 

“Hey,” Shane says. 

Ryan grins and leans down, pressing a kiss to Shane’s mouth before drawing away. 

When Ryan leaves him alone in his bedroom, Shane tells himself that he will get up, put on the mask and go back out into the night. He sits up in Ryan’s bed and finds his discarded mask, holding it in his hands. The mask is his safety net. It should feel scary to be in someone’s presence without it on. It should feel terrifying to know that Ryan’s seen all of him. 

It doesn’t. 

Shane turns the mask over, fingers tracing along the edges, catching against the sharp points and the mouldings that make his expression much more menacing than it would be otherwise. 

Ryan comes back into the bedroom. He’s carrying a glass of water and has taken out his contacts. The black frames of his glasses sit nicely against his face. He looks soft, still a touch blissed out. His hair is a little neater than it was, and Shane likes that he knows what it feels like in his fingers. 

Ryan hands him the glass of water. Shane accepts, fingers tightening around the sweating glass. Ryan’s gaze strays to Shane’s lap and then back up to his face. 

“So,” he says, after Shane’s finished off about half the water. “That was fun.” 

Shane laughs, surprised. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Definitely.” 

“You wanna, maybe, like, do it again?” 

“What? Right now? I’m an old man, Ryan,” Shane teases. The idea of doing it again has already run away with half of Shane’s mental faculties. He wants to see the line of Ryan’s spine beneath him, wants to see the flex of muscle beneath Ryan’s skin, wants to feel the heat of him, surrounding Shane from all sides. Shane’s stomach floods with want, and though the flesh is willing, it does not seem to be able.

Ryan’s face goes through a complicated series of expressions before he blows out a breath through his teeth. “Shut up, Shane,” he says and then settles in next to Shane on the bed. 

Shane shifts, reaching to drop the water glass onto the second nightstand and then gathers Ryan in close. 

They lie in silence for so long Shane thinks Ryan’s dropped off to sleep. He should go now. Slip out into the night and come back in the daylight, see if this holds up just as well in the light as it did in the dark. As if sensing Shane’s intentions, Ryan rolls over onto his stomach and places the palm of his hand against Shane’s belly. In the gloom, Shane can see the gleam of Ryan’s eyes. 

“You’ll be here in the morning?” Ryan asks.

The question makes Shane’s heart jack knife in his chest. He takes a moment before answering. “Yeah,” he says, eventually. “Yeah. I’ll be here.” 

Shane leans down, resting his face in Ryan’s hair and then pressing a kiss to the top of his head. 

The mask rests, forgotten, beside them, tangled in the sheets near Shane’s hip. Outside, the city hums, contented.

-:- 

_A few months later_ … 

Shane walks out of the bedroom to find Ryan on the floor of his living room, scraps of fabric scattered around him and Shane’s extra coat draped over his lap. The evening light is good to Ryan, trimming him in gold and turning his eyes to whiskey. Shane likes to look at him at sunset. Likes to rise over him in bed, and watch the dying daylight bring out the best of Ryan. He wishes he was as good as Ryan is with words so he could tell him.

“What’re you doing?” Shane asks, tugging up the zip on the coat he’s wearing and pulling his gloves on. 

“Reinforcing the body panels,” Ryan says, without looking up from what he’s doing. 

“Reinforcing?” Shane comes around the couch and squats down in front of Ryan. 

Ryan looks up. “I’d like it if I didn’t have to buy another new carpet.” 

“That was one time,” Shane reminds him. “And! I bought you a new one, anyway.” 

“It was the carpet out of your apartment,” Ryan says, looking back down at his stitches. The end of his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth. Shane finds it impossibly endearing.

Shane rests a hand over Ryan’s. His gloves creak as he curls his fingers around Ryan’s palm, making Ryan stop sewing. He waits until Ryan looks back up at him again. 

“I’m not planning on getting stabbed again anytime soon,” Shane says.

“Does a person ever _plan_ on getting stabbed, Shane?” Ryan turns his hand over under Shane’s and holds it, lacing their fingers together. “I just want you to come home to me,” he says, uncharacteristically soft. 

“I will,” Shane says, “always.” He leans in, and Ryan opens under the kiss, letting Shane lick into his mouth and make them both breathless. When they break apart, Ryan’s flushed and he sways towards Shane as Shane pulls away. 

Shane stands.

He looks back at Ryan on the floor just before he fits the mask on over his face. “Don’t wait up,” he says, and they both know he means something else entirely. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat with me about my fic on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/warpspeed_chic) or [Tumblr](http://sequencefairy.tumblr.com)!


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